20 Thoughts on Leadership by Rick Burns

I am re-printing an article that Rick Burns posted on my fan page last week. Rick is a Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves who has served two tours in Iraq, the last in 2008 as a Community Affairs Officer. His day job is Division Leader at Primerica Financial Services. In his spare time Rick is has founded an effort to bring Western business practices to Iraqi businesses. Here are Rick's 20 thoughts on Leadership. They are as applicable to entrepreneurs as they are to the military, non profits, education or any other organization.


20 THOUGHTS ON LEADERSHIP

(The following are some thoughts on leadership I created for my kids as they are starting to move out into the world)

1. Put people in positions where they can succeed. This may mean changing the organization to fit your talent pool. In the end your people are your biggest assets, not your organizational structure.

2. Your people have to know that you are willing to be in the trenches with them. You may not always be able to be there, but they have to know that if you could be, you would be. This will require you having shown them by your actions that you have been with them when circumstances were not pleasant. You cannot just talk about it. Rank may have its privilege, but privilege should be used judiciously. Your ability to get people to do unpleasant things at necessary times is in direct relationship to the perception others have of how much privilege you have taken.

3. You can only throw your rank or position around for so long before it becomes meaningless. People can always find a way to circumvent your authority if you have not developed a foundation of respect.

4. My mother told me when I was beginning to date girls, and reiterated on numerous occasions thereafter, that if I was dating someone and everyone around me was saying something was wrong with my choice, I should stop and listen. If everyone around you is saying something is wrong, it is probably wise to stop and figure out what they are saying. They are probably right.

5. There are only two things you can control…ATTITUDE and ACTIVITY. A positive attitude coupled with productive activity will take you far.

6. It is better to address small things while they are small things, rather than waiting until they become larger and have had time to fester. Problems, generally, do not go away. They only get bigger and more difficult to deal with over time. Better to deal with the immediate problem than delude yourself into thinking the problem will take care of itself. This is particularly true of relationship problems.

7. It is easier to criticize than it is to lead. If you are on top, you can count on others to second guess your decisions and leadership. Remember this when you are being led as well.

8. “In the absence of orders, ATTACK!” Make a decision and move out. Few decisions are terminal. You can always adjust when new information or opportunities present themselves.

9. Define and clearly communicate your parameters and boundaries up front or you may find yourself herding cats down the road.

10. Ask questions and listen. You won’t know everything. That is why you should surround yourself with the best people you have and then listen to them. A well placed question to the right person will almost always reveal insights critical to solving problems. The smart leader focuses on asking the right question to the right person and then listens intently for genius.

11. Example is the most powerful motivator. Be consistent. Do what you say.

12. There are no excuses. Excuses only limit. Be a doer and not a victim at the mercy of your circumstances.

13. Believe. Believe you can. Believe your team can.

14. Fear is the greatest deterrent to action. Good leadership requires that you move beyond your fear and act. No great deed has ever been accomplished without the fear of failure.

15. Focus on fixing real and existing problems. Get at the root of problems. Do not invent problems to solve because it is easier and looks like you are solving problems.

16. The scriptural injunction, “If you are prepared, you shall not fear,” is applicable in all facets of life. The better prepared the leader; the easier it is to get others to follow. Surround yourself with people who will insure you are prepared with the best information and analysis available, not what you want to hear. Insure you have a personal development program that makes learning a life-long pursuit. Never rest, thinking you know it all.

17. Do the right thing…always. It may not be pleasant or easy, but your reputation for integrity is more important than present discomfort.

18. If things are not going right, it may require a radical change to make it right. Don’t be afraid of change. Change for the sake of change, however, is just a gimmick. If you must change, make sure you are making calculated changes with an effect in mind.

19. Emotional control is critical to consistent success. Controlled anger may be an an acceptable strategy to get things done. The imperative, however, is to be in control. In most circumstances, a little honey may be the better strategy. Emotional control allows the effective leader to make choices based on mission accomplishment and not on the whim of the moment. A leader who does not have control of his/her emotions confuses others and expends, unnecessarily, energy in trying to deal with a leader’s temperament of the moment rather than accomplishing the mission at hand.

20. Vision is the indispensable element of leadership. Being able to see around, under and above obstacles is critical to keeping teams on track. Good leadership requires that leaders constantly look around the corner even in the face of tactical problems of the moment that tend to distract. The leader must always be holding the flag high so that others can follow.

Food Technology Companies Urged to Apply to Present at the Premier Food Technology Investor Forum

As many of you know, a few years ago I founded a group that conducts an angel and venture capital forum for the food industry. Each year we select approximately 25 promising food companies to make a ten minute presentation to investors interested in the food space. To the best of our knowledge, this is the only investor forum focused exclusively on the food industry in the United States.

What we are particularly interested in are companies with transformative technologies in food production, processing, safety or distribution.

These technologies should significantly impact the industry in one of five ways:
• increase food production on same number of acres;
• significantly increase the nutritional value of basic foods to the world at the same or lower cost;
• significantly increase the safety of the world food supply;
• allow for the production, processing of our global food needs with significantly less environmental impact and/or energy consumption, or;
• logistic solutions that improve the safe deliver of nutritional foods to the worlds remote areas that are most critically in need.

The conference is held in Iowa in the fall of each year but as anyone who has been involved in event planning knows, the process is continual. We are beginning the process right now of soliciting companies wishing to present to the potential investors. The conference is aptly named the American Food Venture Forum because it is truly Pan American. In the past two years we have had company applications from Canada, Bolivia, Paraguay and twenty-one U.S. States. Last year’s conference featured presenting companies from as far away as Montreal, San Francisco and New York. Investors have been well represented as well from eight different states, including New York and California.

If you are interested in presenting, or know of companies that might be interested please contact me at entrepreneurialadvisor@live.com or go to our website www.foodventureforum.com. This is a juried event where applicants are evaluated relative to others applying. Last year approximately 50% of those applying were invited to make presentations. Thank you.

A Vision Beyond Virtual - Entrepreneurship.org

A Vision Beyond Virtual - Entrepreneurship.org

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Professional Answers to Your Questions (A Bit of Self Promotion)

Have you recently started a business? Do you have questions? Do these questions sound familiar?

How do I write a business plan that will get a lender or investors attention?
How do I create a financial model or financial projections that mean something?
How should I sell my product, direct, through distributors, on-line VARs or manufacturer’s reps?
Who should I hire first, second and third?
Who can I trust?
I have a business plan but how do I implement it?
How do I market my product with little cash?
How should I price my product?
How big is my market, is it growing or declining?
When and how should I role out my product?
I have a good product but how do I best brand it?

There are dozen more questions like this depending upon the stage of your small business. Each of these questions has a different answer and each take a different amount of time depending upon the situation. That’s why canned programs by so called business consultants don’t work. There are thousands of people hawking their “method” to answer any number of these questions. I have seen promotions where someone will write you a business plan for $1,000 and others that will provide a better one for $5,000. One size fits all! What if you’re the company that needs a $5,000 plan but buys the $1,000 one? Or perhaps you have a simple business that could get a good business plan for $3,000 but pays $5,000. Marketing plans, patent searches, and financial models at a “one price fits all” rate are really “one price fits none.”

I am not saying that the price needs to be open ended or based on an hourly rate. We at Entrepreneurial Advisors will visit with you to determine what is needed and then quote a price. Each client is special and each engagement is customized to meet the needs of the particular business. If you have questions or just need assistance sorting things out. Even if you know what to do but do not have the time or expertise to complete the task, give us a chance to talk with you. The initial meeting or call is always free and we can usually work out a plan if you need to pay over time. We won’t always have the answers and we won’t attempt to do work that is better completed by an attorney or CPA but we can many times refer you these resources. Even if your questions are what fork to use at an important dinner or what to wear to a fund raising gala we can help or find someone who can.

We can be reached at entrepreneurialadvisor@live.com, or leave contact info in the comment section below or on our Facebook page. Thank you.

Projecting Sales, One Customer at a Time

I was reading an article today by Jay Conrad Levinson, the Author of “Guerrilla Marketing” and over a dozen other “guerrilla” business books, when it struck me that he was approaching sales the same way I had been advising entrepreneurs to approach sales projections in their financial pro forma.

In his article, Mr. Levinson said, "There is no need to hit a home run the first time your at bat. A single will do, then another single, then another, one following each other, none grandiose, but all bringing you closer to your goal."

So many people want to approach sales projections in a business plan pro forma by finding out the size of the market and projecting they will capture what to them seems like a reasonable share of that market. The problem is, business doesn’t work that way. It is extremely unlikely that one will get 5% of the market. In order to succeed long term in most markets you must be market leader meaning that 5% percent is not enough. To do this you must have a superior product and model comapred to that of the competition and then you're likely to get anywhere from 20%-50% of the market but not 5 percent. It’s possible to stay small and under the radar of the major competitors but then you are likely to have only a fraction of that 5% market share. All of this is academic anyway because picking a percent of the market as your sales projection is a formula for not meeting, let alone exceeding projections.

Another approach inexperienced entrepreneurs use is to decide they will slay the giant. It goes something like this; “If we could just get our cough syrup into all the Walgreen’s in the country we would be $100 million revenue company.” But you won’t, at least not for several years!

When well run, established companies forecast sales they use a pipeline approach. In other words, they look at what is in their pipeline, what the chances are of closing each lead or prospect in that pipeline and how long it will take to close each deal. Farther out they look at niches they would like to penetrate, who the players are in that niche and how and when they will approach each of them. In other words, they build their forecast one single at a time. They don’t decide that next year they will supply Honda with all their transmissions or get the contract for 100% of Home Depot’s lumber needs.

Pro forma sales projections should be approached the same way that the established company approaches next year’s sales – one customer at a time. First look at your products position in the market. Is it high end, low end or somewhere in between? Secondly, who needs your product the most? Which of these companies are most likely to give you an audience? Should you start with local customers and work your way into regional, then national sales, or is it necessary to go national immediately? Who will you approach first, how long do you think it will take to close (add a couple of months to that) and what is the likelihood that you will close the deal. Who’s the second customer you wish to approach, “then another, one following each other, none grandiose, but all bringing you closer to your goal."

Is Food Production the Biggest Challenge of The Next 25 Years?

The estimated world population at 10:00 a.m. CST, February 5, 2010 is roughly 6.8 Trillion by most projections. It has increased more than two and a half times from the 2.5 billion humans on earth in 1950. During that 60 years, we relied on genetic improvements, more effective pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers and improved land production practices. We also put millions of acres of once natural forests, prairies and wetlands through clearing and draining projects.

This came at a huge future cost to the environment. Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University may have put it best when giving his presentation to the World Food Prize’s Norman E. Borlaug International Symposium. He stated and I quote:


“It (the food industry) is the number-one sector of greenhouse-gas emissions in the world. This is because around 18 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions come from clearing rain forest and other forest for pastureland and cropland. And roughly another 12-15 percent reflect the carbon dioxide of fossil-fuel use in food production, the methane from our rice paddies and livestock, and the nitrous oxides that come from the now more than 100 million tons of nitrogen-based fertilizers, which we absolutely need to feed the planet but which have fundamentally altered the nitrogen flux and are a major independent source of greenhouse gas forcings….

What food does is pervasive in terms of its anthropogenic impacts. The food question is the number-one driver of habitat loss for other species. And there’s hardly a class of species around the world that is not suffering a significant decline of abundance because its habitat is being taken by humanity for the purpose, essentially, of feeding ourselves.

Water stress I’ve already mentioned; [it’s] multifaceted, whether it’s the 50 or 60 thousand dams on major rivers around the world, whether it’s the groundwater depletion, whether it’s the evanescent use of glacier melt, which will no longer be available in 40 or 50 years. This is essentially the key input, of course, to food production. And the food sector, to put it conversely, is by far the leading consumer of freshwater around the world.

The food industry is the source of the nitrogen and phosphorous loading that affects what we know in the Mississippi and in the Gulf of Mexico as the dead zone. But now science has shown that [there are] about 130 significant hypoxic zones in estuaries on virtually every populated river system around the world.”


We cannot continue business as usual. Most population projections estimate that there will be 9 trillion human inhabitants sometime between 2040 and 2050! This is another 2.2 trillion mouths to feed with very little quality land remaining to clear or otherwise make fit for agricultural production, most of this population in undeveloped or developing countries. It also means that while those that can afford natural, organic and local foods can opt for them, it is not the solution to our growing food demand. It would of course help the stress on food production if we all ate less meat, but that by itself is not enough.

Of course, like all major problems there are incredible opportunities. The world will need even better genetics, more environmentally friendly pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers and lower impact farming practices. This will all need to be done in a relatively short time period by scientific standards, probably in the next twenty years. Those that can discover and commercialize these opportunities in a timely manner stand to make millions of dollars.

I believe that at some point the angel and venture community will see the opportunity in agricultural and food technology industry and begin focusing on it. Those that do it sooner than later will be the big winners. What is your perspective?

Not Such a Good Idea.

Have you ever had what seemed to be great idea, but the more you looked into it the dumber it became. That happened to me this week for my blog topic. I finally decided to trash the idea, but then what to write about? How about assessing whether an idea warrants further investigation or action?

Nearly, 25 years ago I had a boss that said to me, "I can come up with 100 ideas a week. Your job is to tell me which one of those 100 are good." Nineteen years ago I began a career in venture capital. During that nineteen years I have often thought of that former mentor's words. That is much of what I did in those nineteen years. The task is much more difficult than it seems. Interestingly most successful venture capital firms invest in about one idea for each 100 they see.

There are all sorts of checklists, rules of thumb and and models that one can and should use to help deteremine which deals are viable. But this only gets you so far. Certainly, out of 100 deals there are 5-10 that have a chance - probably two or three that are about the same quality. How do decide between these? Unfortunately, I don't believe it's taught. Life's experiences teach you that certain people you can trust and others you cannot or who is going to work their tail off and who will turn tail and run.

Those same experiences teach you that certain types of business are much more difficult to pull off than others or that certain things must be in place before an investment is made. It teaches you that even though you can take advantage of situation you shouldn't. It will usually come back to bite you in the rear.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly you learn that there is a time to admit your mistakes and stop putting good money after bad or investing valuable time. Usually, the first time you wonder whether something is going to work is the time to get out. Most of us have to much ego to make that decision at that time, trying to save the investment or project instead.

I'm sure glad I decided not to write about that initial topic, but like most, I waited until the last possible minute. That's why I am writing this at 3:00 p.m. Friday. Live and learn.